ation, he looked up at Miss Blake audaciously.

"You'd better make friends with me, ma'am," he said, "because we're going
to be neighbors."

"How's that?"

"I'm taking up my homestead right down here below you on Hidden Creek a
ways. About six miles below your ford."

Miss Blake's face filled with dark blood. She said nothing, put up
her magazine.

Sheila, however, exclaimed delightedly, "Taken up a homestead?"

"Yes, ma'am." He turned his floating, glowing look to her and there it
stayed almost without deviation during the rest of his visit. "I've built
me a log house--a dandy. I had a man up from Rusty to help me. I've
bought me a cow. I'm getting my furnishings ready. That's what I've been
doing these two months."

"And never rode up to call on us?" Sheila reproached him.

"No, ma'am. I'll tell you the reason for that. I wasn't sure of myself."
She opened rather puzzled and astonished eyes at this, but for an instant
his look went beyond her and remembered troubling things. "You see, Miss
Arundel, I'm not used to settling down. That's something that I've had no
practice in. I'm impatient. I get tired quickly. Damn quickly. I change
my mind. It's the worst thing in me--a sort of devil-horse always thirsty
for new things. It's touch and go with him. He runs with me. You see,
I've always given him his head." His look had come back to her face and
dwelt there speaking for him a language headier than that of his tongue.
"I thought I'd tie the dern fool down to some good tough work and test
him out. Well, ma'am, he hasn't quit on me this time. I think he won't.
I've got a ball and chain round about that cloven foot." He drew at his
cigarette, half-veiling in smoke the ardor of his look. "I'd like to show
you my house, Miss Arundel. It's fine. I worked with a builder one season
when I was a lad. I've got it peeled inside. The logs shine and I've got
a fireplace twice the size of this in my living-room"--he made graceful
gestures with the hand that held the cigarette. "Yes, ma'am, a
living-room, and a kitchen, and," with a whimsical smile, "a butler's
pantry. And, oh, a great big bedroom that gets the morning sun." He
paused an instant and flushed from chin to brow, an Anglo-Saxon flush it
was, but the bold Latin eyes did not fall. "I've made some furnishings
already. And I've sent out an order for kitchen stuff."

Here Miss Blake changed the crossing of her legs. Sheila was angry with
herself because she was consu